


Structural Color

by ghostyouknow



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Angst, Awkwardness, Consensual Infidelity, Consent Issues, Group Sex, Infidelity, M/M, Mini Big Bang Challenge, Open Relationships, Science, Succubi & Incubi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:28:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539929
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghostyouknow/pseuds/ghostyouknow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Misha is an incubus. Or else he's a sex vampire. Either way, sex with him is more than just sex – it's Misha's mealtime. Jensen doesn't want to date a monster, but he knows he'll never be with anyone else like he is with Misha.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> All of the art is by the lovely tsuminoaru!

[ ](http://s818.photobucket.com/albums/zz107/ghostyouknow27/?action=view&current=structuralcolor.png)

**Structural Color**

“He's kinda wild,” Jared said, when he caught Jensen staring at the hot guy in the penguin pullover. “I'm not sure you want to go there.”  
  
Jared's wife, Gen, was more blunt. “Misha? You are not allowed to like Misha. He will eat you alive, and I don't mean that in a hot way.”  
  
“How could that not be hot?” Jensen wanted to joke, but it didn't come out right.  
  
Gen shook her head, totally serious. “Look, I've known him a long time. He's fun, but he's not the fun kind of fun, and you're Jared's best friend, which means he'd cry like a baby if you got hurt, and then I'd be stuck fluffing his pillows and buying him ice cream. Don't go there.”  
  
Jared and Gen were nice people, Jared even more than Gen. What they had said? In normal, petty human, it would've been something like, 'He's a whoring monster druggie dickhead cunt, and we want to guillotine his balls off.'  
  
Jensen would've backed off forever, except he was just visiting – he didn't know half these people – and Jared had to go mingle at some point, since it was his and Gen's housewarming party.   
  
Over the years, Jensen had put in a massive effort to fake social skills. He'd learned how to make eye contact at some point in college, and he'd done enough Toastmasters to handle a presentation or two. But whenever he was faced with a big group of strange people, his nerves flared up, and he went back to being that gangly kid who'd clam up, only to blurt out some random fact about Komodo dragons or bumblebees at the most embarrassing moment. When that happened, he had two choices: to be that gangly kid, or enter a conversation edgewise by talking to a single person tangential to the rest.

It just so happened that Misha was the one who sat down on the couch, which just so happened to be where Jensen was already sitting. He was talking and laughing with some others, but at some point, his side of the conversation lulled.

Misha was good looking, but Jensen couldn't quite decide if he was _attractive_ or not. There was something just a little off-putting about Misha, and Jensen didn't know what to do with that – that hint of icy insolence. He remembered Gen's warning.

But when you were the quiet one, you tended to notice what other people didn't. Misha seemed engaged, happy, enthusiastic – at least until the spotlight focused elsewhere. Then his smile stiffened, and something tired and bleak flooded his eyes. Jensen thought that, maybe, Misha was pretending, too.  
  
“So how do you know Jared and Gen?” Jensen tried.  
  
Misha glanced at him, and his previous smile came back full-force. It was wide and toothy, and so big he had to scrunch up the rest of his face to make it fit. “I went to high school with Gen. And middle and elementary, too, I suppose. I'm not sure we've settled on the story we're telling people. You?”

Jensen suspected there was a joke somewhere in there. “I, uh, I know Jared.”

“He's nice.” That sounded dismissive.

Jensen's throat clamped closed, and his cheeks went hot for no reason. So much for having learned to fake social skills. After a moment, he waved at Misha's chest. “You like penguins?”

Misha looked down at his shirt, as if noticing it for the first time. “They're alright.”

“The females of some species prostitute themselves. Even if they're mated, they'll have sex with a single guy in exchange for rocks.”

God. Oh God. _Penguin prostitution_ was the fact that Jensen just had to share? He waited for Misha to give him that look – the one that was confused and also condescending, the one that meant the other person thought he was something to be ridiculed.  
  
“Hey, Mish. You find some new meat?” That was Matt Cohen, whom Jensen had met at least once before. He couldn't remember how Matt knew Jared and/or Gen.  
  
Jensen wanted to sink into the cushions. He wasn't the kind of person who could laugh off embarrassment or mockery, and Matt had been mocking him, somehow. He knew it.  
  
Misha's smile faltered. Then he smiled and looped an arm over Jensen's shoulders. “You know me, Matty. I can't help but make new friends wherever I go.”  
  
[](http://s818.photobucket.com/albums/zz107/ghostyouknow27/?action=view&current=s_c_party_color.png)  
#

Jensen wasn't big on large gatherings. He'd rather go the whole day without leaving his apartment. But when Jared called to invite him to a brunch, Jensen couldn't tell him 'no.' It wasn't the kind of party that naturally led to sex, but Misha had wound up with some car trouble, and Jensen's dad used to build engines. Jensen wasn't a mechanic, but he could troubleshoot and perform small fixes. He was more than good for a dead battery.  
  
Gen tried to pull Jensen aside, when she saw where he was headed, but Jensen shrugged her off. He was an adult, he was more or less friendly with Misha, and, besides, the guy looked like he was coming down with something; the least Jensen could do was make sure he got home okay. He went out to his truck and pulled out his jumper cables.

Seven minutes later, he was collapsed across the backseat in Misha's van, his pants half-off, and he didn't know what had happened, except that it had been _good_.  
  
Misha wiped his mouth. “Great, thank you, that was very nice.”

“Huh?”  
  
“That's what you should say after someone's kind enough to suck out your brains through your dick. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to maintain basic decorum.” He slapped Jensen's thigh. “Come on, now. Up and at 'em. If you don't return within the next five minutes, Gen will have my head. _Both_ heads, if you get my meaning.” He spoke fast, his motions jittery and jerking.

“She warned me away from you,” Jensen said, because he was still too dazed to do that decorum thing.

Misha stilled, and then he smiled a hard flash of teeth. “Oh, of course she did. You're one of those nice gay boys, am I right? You want a picket fence and an equally nice houseboy, who will do the dishes and feed your adopted babies homemade pureé.”

Jensen sat up, and the world tilted around him. He felt ecstatic, drained and oddly itchy. He almost flopped face-first off of the seat, except Misha caught him. Jensen had at least two inches and twenty pounds of pure muscle over him, but Misha didn't have any trouble pushing him around.

“Easy,” Misha said, his voice lower and more worried. He mumbled something that sounded like, “Come on, Jen. I didn't take that much.” But that was probably Jensen's woozy brain. He must have drunk more than he'd thought.

He pawed at Misha's hair. “I like you. Can I see you?”

Misha's face loomed large, like a nearby moon. “Haven't you heard? I'm a nonmonogamous pansexual sexual opportunist. Everyone gets to see me.”

Jensen thought he was joking. He drew Misha in for a kiss, although he was too uncoordinated to do more than smash their faces together.

So, their first kiss was terrible and had nearly broken both their noses, and it had ended with Jensen butting his head roughly against Misha's collarbone and asking him out to dinner.

Misha refused. Of course he did. Who'd want someone like Jensen?

#

Gen pulled Jensen aside. “What did you do with Misha?”

Watermelon juice dribbled down Jensen's chin. He was thirty years old, not some kid who needed a slap on the wrist for getting a blowjob from someone his best friend's wife didn't like. But he couldn't say that; he couldn't handle _confrontation_. Especially not when he was stuck at some dumb picnic, courtesy Jared and Jared's stupid suburban yuppie friends.

“Some male bats have sex with female bats while they're still in hibernation,” Jensen said. “The female bats may keep the egg from implanting until after they wake up.”

Gen blinked. “Gross?” She looked worried, then. Jared must've shared some of Jensen's tics. “God, Jensen. I don't mean to come at you. But Matt and them … they get along with Misha because they don't mind being used, and they're using him, too. I know I don't know you like Jared does, but I've seen enough to know that you're not like that. Jared would _kill_ me if I let you get hurt. _I_ would kill me.”

What did she think was going to happen? It had been a blowjob and a fumbled attempt to ask for a date, not the third act of _Saw_.

Jensen's gaze slid sideways, and he saw Misha standing with his back turned to Jensen and Gen. He was talking to Jared and Julie and gesturing wildly with a half-eaten ear of corn. Jared must've said something funny, because Misha burst into laughter. He pivoted around and doubled over, like his mirth had bubbled over and made him _move_.

He looked up from where he was bent over, hands on his knees, and he noticed Jensen. Anyone else might've gotten uncomfortable – acted like Jensen was spying or being weird – but Misha's smile widened and softened both, like he'd just included Jensen in the joke.

Then, he bobbed up and turned around, back to the others. The moment was done and over, but Jensen's chest had ached with something he didn't want to name.

“Something totally happened,” Gen said. “ _Christ_.”

She looked upset. Actually _upset_.

“It wouldn't be your business if it did,” Jensen said. He didn't know where that came from, only that he suddenly felt so, so calm.

Surprisingly, Gen didn't seemed all that surprised. “I know, hon,” she said, after a long moment. “Have you tried the cobbler? You better grab some soon. I keep having to chase Jay away before he eats the whole damn thing.”

The picnic broke up when it started to rain. Misha had come on a bike; Jensen offered to drive him home.

Misha looked pleased, rain splattering across the dorky bicycling sunglasses he'd pushed up into his hair. “You can drive me halfway.”

Misha gave him directions to a park, because of course Jared and Gen picked a town filled with the damn things. Jensen turned off the engine. Then, Misha's hands were in his hair, and their mouths were crashing together. Misha whispered between kisses. Things like, “I can't get your taste out of my head.”

Jensen pushed Misha into the back seat; Misha allowed the pushing. It was frantic and messy, like they'd become each other's oxygen, like they were both in free-fall.

Afterward, Jensen's head felt clouded, and his back hurt, and he was a little afraid he'd twisted his ankle moving between the seats. Misha had become an uncomfortable, bony sprawl. Rain pattered around them.  
  
Jensen said, “Great, thank you, that was very nice.”

Misha pulled back with a little snort. “I think I like rude on you.”

They stared at each other. Misha was the first to look away. He looked … rosy. Jensen spotted some blood on his lower lip.

“I didn't mean to do that.” Jensen felt shaky and unsure. He wasn't used to hormones hijacking his body. At least moms and kids didn't hang out at _rainy_ parks.

“Which part?” Misha asked.

“Can we get coffee sometime?”

“Why would you want to do that?”

They were still clothed, albeit rumpled and unzipped. Jensen's underwear felt sticky. “You know if you grind up a bunch of peacock feathers, they just look gray? The color isn't from pigment. It's from the way the feathers are structured to reflect light at different wavelengths. If you change the angle of the light, you change the color.”

He waited for Misha to ask him if were autistic – he wouldn't have been the first – or to get that look in his eyes, the one that went, 'How'd I get trapped here with this weirdo, and how can I escape?'

“Am I the peacock, here?” Misha asked, very slowly. “I change color, depending on how you bend me? Or are you talking about yourself?”

Jensen said, “You're nice.”

_You're nice._

“Don't get confused on me, Jensen. I make you _feel_ nice.” Misha tapped his fingers along Jensen's ribs.

“Is this about about Matt?” Maybe that was why Gen kept trying to warn him about Misha.

“ _Matt_?” Misha chewed his bloody lip, and then winced. “No, this isn't about Matt. We're not together. I just slept on his couch for awhile.”

So they had broken up? Or they'd never been together? Matt had been mad at Misha for something else?

“You don't live with him anymore?” Jensen asked.

“I'm crashing with Julie at the moment. I jump around a lot. I have everyone, and I'm with no one, and you don't want to get coffee with me.”

“Don't I get to decide that?” Jensen sat up too fast. He leaned back against the car window. “Ow. Fuck.”

“I should get my bike,” Misha said. “I could use a ride right now. I do appreciate that you'd offer. Both the ride and the coffee.”

“You said I taste good.”

“Did I?” Misha twisted his hands together, either nervous or jittery.

“Yeah.” Jensen rubbed his temples. “Sorry, I shouldn't have asked you out, or told you that I liked you. That's awkward, right? I'm pretty awkward.”

“You're great. Really. You'll make some other coffee really happy.”

That sounded like Misha was making fun of him, and Jensen couldn't take that from someone he'd just humped like a dog. Was this was all some kind of joke?

“Hey, Jen. Look at me. I'm glad you said those things,” Misha squeezed Jensen's thigh. “I like you, too. I'm just telling you now that everything's going to end in disaster.”

“There's something to end?”

Misha squirmed, looking uncomfortable. But then he took a deep breath. “I guess that depends on whether or not you actually buy me coffee. What are you doing Thursday?”

#

A month later, they went for _a hike_ , of all the lame things. Jensen was in good shape, but he wasn't used to scaling mountaintops, and he was scared of heights, besides. He got annoyed when Misha scrambled ahead of him like a mountain goat, and even more annoyed when Misha tried to coax him toward the edge of a cliff.

“It's a great view,” Misha said. “You have to see this, Jen.”

Jensen did _not_ need to see whatever was on the other side of a sheer, five-hundred-foot drop, especially if seeing it meant standing at the edge of the damn cliff. “I'm good here.”

But Misha stood right on the lip and smiled. It was a warmer smile than most. His hair stuck up over his head. Jensen saw some sunburn starting on his nose. “You'd be better over here.”

Jensen felt a deep, stupid calm flow through him. Time slowed and sped and swirled, and the next thing Jensen knew, he stood a mere foot from the edge, Misha pressed up behind him, his arms caging Jensen's waist.

“Oh, God,” Jensen said. “I'm gonna hurl.”

“Just look.”

The ledge overlooked a wide river, which sparkled bright in the sunlight. The day beamed bright and beautiful, and it was dizzying to stand over all of it – to see the rocks in the water, and the pine trees rolling into the far, blue distance.

“What did I tell you?” Misha asked, his chin settling into the groove between Jensen's neck and shoulder.

“It's nice, I guess. I could still throw up.”

Misha hummed and nuzzled him. “I trust you not to ruin all your chances of getting laid tonight.”

Jensen turned his head to look at Misha. He meant to snark back – he was getting comfortable enough to do that – but he got caught up in Misha's eyes instead. The more Jensen got to know him, the better Misha looked. His eyes were a deep, dark blue. Jensen found them hypnotic.

Strangely enough, Misha lowered his gaze, like he'd suddenly learned how to be bashful. His thumb rubbed a circle on Jensen's stomach, and he sighed, a little soft, a little sad.

Misha was free and loose with sexual contact, but stingy when it came to the rest. This was partially because Misha was a freak of nature who got wound-up and restless after sex, which was, of course, when Jensen was worn out and boneless with afterglow. But the last few times he'd visited, Misha seemed to be _making an effort._ Like maybe this casual thing between them was getting … more affectionate. Did more affectionate mean less casual? Did Jensen want that? It wasn't scaring him this time, but Jensen didn't know what that meant.

So, Jensen asked him: “What are we doing?”

And Misha said: “I like you, Jensen. But I need you to understand that we will never be exclusive.”

Jensen didn't know what to say. His fear rushed back at him, and he gripped Misha's forearms and leaned back. “Can we get back from the edge, now?”

They descended the mountain in silence, with Misha looking more and more miserable. Jensen didn't understand. Misha clearly thought that the non-monogamy thing was a deal-breaker for Jensen, and he was clearly upset at the thought of losing him. So, why?  
  
Maybe he'd been hurt bad at some point or didn't want to be tied down _right now_. Jensen could deal with knowing that Misha slept with other people, as long as he didn't have to see it and they kept it safe.

He said so; Misha squinted at him. “So, what? We date, we're together, but we can have sex with unlimited other people, no questions asked? That won't bother you?”

“Yeah. I mean, no, it won't. People do that all the time. Don't they?”

“You don't sound too sure, Jensen. These things don't work unless both people are sure.” Misha cleared his throat. “They often don't work when both people are. Not that I have extensive experience –”

“I am,” Jensen said, because, suddenly, he was.

Jensen wasn't okay. He knew he wasn't okay. He didn't know the _why_ or the _how_ – he didn't think he was in the DSM. But he was shy and introverted and he found it hard to trust people. He couldn't always reach out. It didn't take much to make him feel smothered, and when he felt smothered, he retreated.

Jensen _wanted_ something else, but he couldn't control the thing inside, the thing that made him close people off. The last time he'd dated, something had happened, and Jensen had become so anxious and unable to deal that he'd simply never spoken to Cindy again. She called; he didn't answer. She popped up on gchat; he ignored her tentative little messages. He hated himself for it. But he thought about her, and his mind glazed, and panic gripped his throat. He'd done the same with Nikki, after he'd woken up drenched in sweat, feeling like something heavy was squeezing down on his chest.

He didn't feel any of that with Misha, and he never had – if anything, he felt like he needed to get closer, see more. With Misha, he kept finding little pieces of the person he wanted to be – the person who could make a joke without blushing and wanting to die, the person who could stand on a cliff's edge and see the view. He was young. Young people didn't settle down, unless they were Jared and Gen. Also, Jensen didn't want to lose Misha.

He said, “I just don't want to hear about it, okay? You do what you have to, but when it's us, it's us.”

“It's us.” Misha's voice went thick. “Don't say that unless you mean it.”

Jensen really did.

#

Misha wasn't doing so hot. His skin looked gray-green, and sweat beaded his forehead. When he raised his glass to his lips, his hand trembled. Jensen almost wanted it to be guilt, but he knew, deep-down, that Misha had nothing to be guilty about.  
  
“We don't have to do this,” Jensen said. “It's our four-month anniversary. I don't think people even celebrate that, most of the time. We're in a bar. It's not like I reserved our table a month ago.”  
  
Misha looked down at his hands and chewed his lip.

Jensen realized he had no idea where Misha was staying; he knew he had a graphic design job he could do from anywhere with Internet access, and that his … Misha … was more or less a committed couch-surfer. He'd been doing it forever and could obviously handle himself, but his habit of getting kicked-out meant that three square meals and adequate sleep weren't exactly guaranteed. It was one of the reasons Jensen wanted to offer what he was about to offer. Even after last Friday night.

Misha had been staying at Gabriel's. Jensen thought he'd drive up early and surprise him. He'd made up his mind about asking Misha to move in, and he was impatient to actually do so.  
  
When he'd pulled up in front of Gabriel's tiny ranch house, he'd been surprised, but not shocked, to see the driveway full of cars; Misha had an active social circle. Still, Misha hadn't mentioned anything, and Jensen had wanted to know what he was walking into, so he'd looked in the side window, through the bent blinds.  
  
He'd seen an orgy.  
  
An honest-to-God orgy, with Misha smack in the middle. He'd been half in some girl's lap. Jensen didn't recognize her, and she wasn't all that pretty. Her hips were … pumping behind his, and Jensen saw straps banding over her lower body. Gabriel had been giving Misha a blowjob. They'd been far from the only people writhing around in that room. At least people seemed to be using condoms.

Misha's eyes were closed. His neck was craned back, exposing his throat. His mouth opened and closed in hungry gulps. He'd looked … blank, almost. But maybe that was just Jensen. He'd gotten into his car, and he'd driven home, and he hadn't felt a thing.

Misha hadn't done anything wrong. Jensen knew that Misha slept around. It was part of their agreement. But Jensen hadn't thought that non-exclusivity meant sleeping with twenty other people at a time. He didn't know how to be comfortable with that. He didn't know who to talk to; Jared was happily married, and his wife had told him to stay away from Misha, apparently for good reason. Jensen had never dealt with this kind of thing before.

When Misha called, sounding all warm and asking what time Jensen thought he would arrive on Saturday, Jensen had mumbled something about getting handed a project at the last minute.

Misha – he'd had the nerve to sound disappointed. “I thought we could go to the zoo and see some birds.”

“Sorry, Mish. Some other time.”

Jensen had gone to a clinic to get himself tested, because he suddenly didn't trust that Misha was actually staying safe. He hadn't used anything for that first blowjob, and while Jensen definitely preferred mouth-on-skin, it wasn't worth catching something from the town bicycle –

He'd really thought of Misha as the town bicycle. If Misha was living like it was 1969, Jensen's brain had shot straight back to 1942.

When Misha had called again, Jensen hadn't known what to say. But Jensen could be quiet sometimes, and Misha had launched into one of his picky client stories, and before he knew it, they were back into daily texts and calls. When Misha had finally broached the subject of another visit, Jensen had given a date.  
  
Misha had sounded really pleased. “Oh, our anniversary.”  
  
Like Misha wasn't fucking the whole town.  
  
Misha set down his water. “I haven't seen you in what feels like forever. I don't care if you wanted to celebrate by touring a pig farm.”  
  
“That's beautiful, sweetheart ...”

Misha scowled at him.

Jensen continued, “But we don't have to stay here if you feel sick. I can always take you back to my motel, get you all wrapped up in blankets, put a cool washcloth on the back of your neck.”

“Why the washcloth? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of the blankets?”

Jensen shrugged. “It's what my mom used to do when I had a fever.”  
  
Misha shook himself. “I'm sorry, Jensen. Things were hectic today. This week, actually, and I didn't … I didn't get a chance to eat. I'll be fine once we get some food. And there – there are some things I'd like to discuss.”  
  
“Wait. You haven't eaten in a week? Where have you been staying?”  
  
“No, no. It just feels like it.” Misha offered a small smile. “Like I said, it's been hard lately. I've been thinking about moving again. Not too far. Just, you know, out of this particular town.”  
  
Jensen wondered if Misha suspected; if he were giving him an opening. But Jensen's chest ached, and he couldn't bring himself to say anything except, “Did you know cuckoo finches and the birds they, um, cuckold, I guess, are in competition? The prey birds keep making their eggs more colorful, so they won't get confused by the imposter eggs getting laid in their nests. And the cuckoos just keep getting better at counterfeiting.”  
  
Misha faltered, and then grinned. “How do you know this stuff?”

Jensen swallowed. “I –”

“You don't have to tell me. I like a man with a mystery.” Misha leaned in to kiss Jensen, and even though it was just a small, chaste thing, it made things rush and burst through his veins. When they separated, Jensen had to white-knuckle the table to get his bearings. He felt dizzy. Punched-out.  
  
“Jensen. Are you okay?” Misha frowned down at Jensen's hands.  
  
“Peachy,” Jensen said, after a moment.  
  
There were bright spots of color in Misha's cheeks, but at least he wasn't so glass-eyed. “Why don't you order the food? A BLT with fries for me? Skip the mayo? I think I'm going to the restroom. I could use some cold water on my face.”  
  
“Yeah, that's fine.”  
  
Jensen watched Misha maneuver through bar. It wasn't packed yet, but it also wasn't quiet. He felt restless. He kept thinking about Misha and Matt's mouth. If he couldn't handle that, he needed to break up with Misha, right?  
  
He didn't want to break up with Misha. He wanted to _threaten_ to break up with him, so Misha would get all wide-eyed and worried and give up sex with everybody else. Except that wouldn't happen.

Jensen didn't know why he was getting so attached. He and Misha … they were extremely different. Misha slept with (lots and lots) of other people; Jensen could do so in theory, but wasn't all that interested. Jensen was always driving in to see Misha; Misha never made an effort to visit him, and not just because Jensen wasn't ready to let him in. He talked about anniversaries and not letting Jensen go – but what did that mean to Misha, exactly?

Some people had a partner, even if they weren't monogamous. Was that what Misha wanted? Was that something Jensen could want? He didn't think so – not when 'not monogamous' meant the kind of sex Misha was having. Which brought him back to breaking up.

Then, he remembered how Misha had made him forget his fear long enough to get out on that ledge, how tight he'd held him. Jensen had never met anyone so adept, not only at getting Jensen out of his shell, but at making him forget he even had one.  
  
But Misha probably did the same for a lot of other people. By having orgies. With people who weren't even _attractive_.

Jensen didn't like feeling this way.  
  
The waitress took his order, and Jensen realized that Misha had been gone way too long for a bathroom run. He headed into the back and saw the there wasn't even a line for the _ladies'_ bathroom. He hesitated for a moment, before he approached the door to the men's.  
  
That's when he heard it. Grunting. From behind the door. A soft, bitten-off moan.  
  
Jensen wanted to believe that Misha had realized the bathroom was otherwise occupied, but he knew better. He opened the door a sliver. No one had bothered to use a stall. Then again, it would be hard to get three men in there, especially since Misha had decided he couldn't get through dinner without sucking down the dick of a three-hundred pound trucker.  
  
Misha's back was toward the door. He was giving a blowjob, while his other hand jerked off a skinny guy with a mullet.  
  
This wasn't even that kind of bar.  
  
Misha wasn't even enjoying himself.  
  
Jensen didn't need to see his face to know that; the noises Misha made were wrong, and his movements were sharp and perfunctory, like he just wanted to get it over with. So, why, then? Why the Hell couldn't Misha get through a _meal_? And why had he needed to go to someone – _someones_ – other than Jensen?  
  
Jensen wasn't going to stick around to find out. He closed the door, and he walked straight out of the bar. Misha could pick up the fucking bill.  
  
###


	2. Chapter 2

Misha called; Jensen erased his voicemails without listening to them. He couldn't help but see the text messages, but he did his best to delete them without reading more than a few words. Half of them contained phrases like, 'alien abduction' and 'were you kidnapped?,' so Misha clearly wasn't taking Jensen running out on him as a serious thing in the first place. Why would he? Misha didn't take _anything_ seriously.

Jensen knew he owed Misha an actual break-up. But he just couldn't talk to him. He couldn't pick up the phone, and he definitely couldn't drive ninety minutes out of the city, and then hunt around to figure out where Misha was staying. Shit, Misha was basically _homeless_.

Jensen needed his tiny, spare efficiency, with its white walls and the futon he'd kept since college and the IKEA furniture he'd never bothered replacing with better. He needed _order_. How had he ever gotten involved with Misha in the first place? Somewhere, deep down, he must've known it was doomed. They'd been dating four months, and he'd never brought Misha back to his home. He'd thought that Misha wouldn't be interested, not with his friends sixty miles away. He hadn't wanted to deal with the knowledge that he wasn't enough – that Misha could and did find better company elsewhere.

At the same time, he _missed_ Misha. Time passed so slowly, now. Jensen felt the walls closing in on him, in increments. He couldn't sleep. Even when he could, he woke up exhausted. He made stupid mistakes at work and had to proof each spreadsheet twice, and he spent his weekends in bed, reading articles comparing ground squirrel muscle cells pre- and post- hibernation.

On the second Saturday after the failed attempt at an anniversary dinner, Jensen sat in bed, wearing a pair of college sweats. His stomach growled, but he'd already made coffee, and he didn't feel like getting out of bed just to feed himself.

Jensen's cell buzzed. He picked it up from his pillow and went to delete the message, only to pause when he realized it was _Jared_ writing, 'hey i'm outside lemme up.' He considered pretending that he wasn't home, but 1) Jared would never buy that and 2) Jared had, apparently, driven in from the suburbs early enough to arrive at Jensen's apartment door at a quarter to nine.

He couldn't find his shoes in the pile-up he'd created, because becoming a hoarder would surely solve his problems. So he ended up venturing into the hall barefoot, which was, of course, disgusting. It was a black-footed Jensen who met Jared at the door. “Dude, what are you doing here?”

Jared had scanned Jensen from top to bottom, and then held out a tupperware. “Gen made muffins.”

Jensen had a hard time believing that.

“From a box. From Trader Joe's. I did the mixing. But she set the oven, and it was her idea!” Jared looked earnest. “We've seen the way Misha's carrying on. Someone had to check up on you. Plus, I miss you, man. It feels like it's been forever since we hung out, just the two of us.”

Well, yeah. Jared had moved to the suburbs and was living with his wife. Jensen had made more effort with him than anyone, but Jared only invited him down when something was happening – a picnic, a party, a brunch on his brand new picturesque veranda.

Jensen accepted the tupperware with numb fingers. “You've seen Misha?”

_Everyone gets to see me._

God, Jensen's mind didn't need to go there.

“He's staying with us. Gen and him are … strained, but she's contractually obligated to take him in. Or something. He's driving us _crazy_.” Jared pushed past Jensen and started jogging up the stairs. Jared had to jog up all stairs all the time. And also climb trees and fences. Jensen could easily spend a whole day alone in bed. “Seriously, he's got, like, bat ears. He hears anything we say, anywhere in the house, and it's Gen that bitches about him and me that ends up with the itching powder in my underwear drawer. He told her it was because hurting me hurts _her_ more than just hurting her, but I think, mostly, he's just an ass.”

Jensen plodded after him. He was and remained friends with Jared partially because Jared had no problem ignoring Jensen's walls, but that didn't mean that he liked him just showing up like this. He didn't want to eat muffins, and he didn't want to talk about Misha, not even to trash him.

Jared let himself into Jensen's apartment. He took in the clothes and books everywhere and made a hmmph, before he sat down in the IKEA bowl chair. Jensen had bought it back when he was seeing Cindy, because that had been in college, and he didn't want to ask a girl to choose between sitting on milk crates and sitting on his bed. It was in no way built for a man Jared's size. He curled up quickly, but the chair-part looked awful wobbly on its base.

Jensen sighed and set down the muffins. He started making more coffee. He didn't say a word. 

“There's a game on this afternoon. I was thinking we could watch? I can pop down to the corner store and get provisions. Muffins are great and all, but not for football.” Jared had always been good at filling Jensen's silences. 

 “You mean you're not going to grill me about Misha?” Jensen asked.

“I'm here to _hang out_ ,” Jared said, wounded. “I'm here to make sure you're _alive_. I didn't stop being your friend when I moved, Jen.”

That was usually the way it worked. Jensen always meant to stay in contact with people who left, but he was terrible at actually doing so. He just got caught up in his own shit – even if that shit were minimal –

“Gen warned me off, and I didn't listen, and I didn't want to deal with it.”

“Gen has to be on Misha's side, and she hates it. So, she likes to warn people off before it gets that far.”

Jensen blinked. “Huh?”

“We don't have to talk about it. I know you need space. To process things.”

“You make me sound like a computer,” Jensen said. “I'm not a computer.”

“Seriously?” Jared tried to sit up, and that was too much for the bowl chair; the bowl part slid off its support. Jared crashed to the floor with an 'oof' followed by an 'ow.'

Jensen laughed before he could stop himself, but Jared just grinned back. “Hey, it's your fault for hanging onto this thing. You're, like, two inches shorter than me. You can't sit in it, either.”

It was true. He couldn't, and he didn't have any friends who could. Jensen left spaces for people to fill, even knowing that he wouldn't allow anyone _in_ , even knowing that they couldn't possibly fit in the space allotted. Misha had gotten closer than anyone, and he'd never even been here. 

He would, he decided, be buying a better chair.

#

In the end, Jared and Jensen ate muffins and chips and drank cheap beer and watched the game, and something in Jensen's chest loosened.

The next day, he texted Misha, 'can we talk?'

Misha didn't reply, which Jensen probably deserved. He went out for a long run, which meant that when Misha did call – and he did _call_ , apparently not understanding that the text was code for 'I am not quite ready to hear your voice' – Jensen almost back to his apartment and nearly out of breath.

He picked up anyway. “Misha?”

“Hi, Jen. It's been a bit,” Misha spoke brightly. “Got your text. Didn't your mother-of-the-wet-washcloths tell you that it's 'may,' not 'can?'”

“Uh.” Jensen stopped and jogged in place for a second, before he gave up on pretending to continue his run.

“Why are you out of breath?”

“I'm running. Or I was.”

“I didn't know you ran,” Misha said, still with that dumb, false, quick chipperness. “You knew I did. Why didn't you say anything? We've missed so many romantic jogs by the lake.'”

“I wasn't sure you were actually running.” It was true, although Jensen hadn't admitted it before. It wasn't like they'd had that many mornings together in the first place – that only happened when Jensen stayed overnight in a motel. He'd done that exactly twice, for two nights each. Misha had snuck out before seven. By the time Jensen woke up – two, two-and-a-half hours later – Misha had been singing Muppet songs in the shower. 

He heard Misha suck in a breath. “You scared me when you left the restaurant. I didn't know what had happened. I told Gen you'd been kidnapped, and I needed to contact Missing Persons. But she pointed out that the kidnappers must've have taken your car, too. That's when I thought it had to be aliens. What else would make you leave before the exciting arrival of mediocre beer and soggy fries? I had thought you were planning to break up with me, but I'd assumed you'd let me down easy. Preferably the day after our anniversary.”

“Knock it off.” Jensen was mildly surprised that he hadn't recited some random fact about DNA analysis and what it said about the domestication of the horse. “Is that why you mentioned it specifically? So I couldn't break up with you until afterward?”

Misha went silent. Misha didn't _do_ silent.

“Misha? You still there?”

“You were really breaking up with me?” The question mark seemed tacked-on, like Misha wanted to give Jensen a chance to disagree.

Jensen wanted to turn off the phone and throw it somewhere – maybe into a drainage ditch – but he just stood there. He'd never broken up with anyone. He'd always froze them out until they gave up. He didn't know if he could, especially with the one person who made him feel just a little bit brave.

But Jensen wasn't anything to Misha, was he? How could he _not_ break up after what he'd seen? If he told anyone that story, first they'd laugh at him for being an idiot, for ever getting into that kind of arrangement in the first place. And then they'd laugh even harder, once they heard that he'd caught Misha red-handed and still not dumped him. God, Misha had been talking to Gen; did that mean that Jared knew? Did everyone know?

Jensen couldn't breathe. He needed to scream at Misha and tell him to fuck off forever, but first he needed _air_.

“You know what? This isn't a phone talk. We shouldn't have it on the phone. We should meet in person. Don't worry, I'll find you. I should've found you earlier, really. Gen must have some old-person thing, like an address book, right? I'll look, and I'll come find you.”

Jensen said, “Misha. _I saw you_.”

“I've never been invisible. TTFN.”

#

Which meant, of course, that Jensen had to call Jared and ask him _not_ to give Misha his address. There were a lot of things Jensen couldn't deal with. People entering his space uninvited was one of them. Jared was okay, because he _knew_ Jared, and Jared invading his apartment usually left him feeling better, rather than unsettled and irritated.

But first, Jensen needed a shower. And then he needed to eat organic bran cereal from a plastic bowl and with a plastic spoon. And then he needed to do his laundry, organize his books, and cram himself in that damn bowl chair – which, no, he hadn't gotten rid of – with his laptop balanced precariously on his knees. He skimmed abstracts. There was something about BPA giving lab monkeys bigger boobs, and another about electrocuting eyeballs onto tadpoles. Jensen couldn't understand half of the articles – anything on neurotransmitters was ridiculously over his head – but he found them soothing, and he liked knowing the things he managed to learn. Fiction, he thought, should come with more graphs.

Also, this was ridiculous. Was he waiting for the doorbell to ring? Jensen hadn't felt unable to call Jared in years, and yet he couldn't stand the idea of making that call. It was too late anyway. Wasn't it. Misha was going to find a way to come here, and Jensen didn't want him forcing his way into his apartment – the one place that required his express invitation to enter.

He couldn't see him. He couldn't see him _here_. He couldn't spend the next few weeks jumpy and waiting and expecting Misha at any moment. He was now thinking of Misha as a boogeyman.

He ended up driving to Jared and Gen's, because he wanted to meet Misha on his own terms, not because his ex (did he get to call Misha his ex?) had stalked him. He rang the doorbell. Jared answered.

“Jensen! Whoa! Why the sur –”

“You can't tell Misha where I live,” he said, and then immediately felt stupid.

“Dude, he's _here_. He's on my couch watching lions eat zebras.” Jared frowned. “Wait, he doesn't know where you live?”

“I know everything!” Misha's voice came over growling noises and a panicked, honking trill. “Who are you talking to?”

“I have to go,” Jensen mumbled, but of course Misha had already made it to the door.

His whole face beamed, except Jensen now knew the difference between the real thing and the counterfeit, and it wasn't the former. “I was hoping you'd come. Between you and me, Gen has no such thing as an address book. I figured it would be far easier for you to walk into my parlor, little fly.”

Jared crossed his arms over his chest and glared down at Misha. “My parlor. It's mine. What did you do?”

Misha didn't exactly seem cowed. He sneered up at Jared and grabbed Jensen by his left lower arm. “I merely suggested that Jensen and I chat in person. That's hardly an abuse of my superpowers.”

Jared eyed Jensen. “You okay?”

Jensen felt grateful, and then resentful. He didn't need a guard dog. “Yeah.”

Misha smiled even wider and tugged him into the living room. The television was still going. “This is exciting. Like high school. You should stay for dinner, meet the folks.”

“That's a no,” Jensen yanked his arm back. “Don't manhandle me.”

“You usually like that,” Misha said, breezy and unserious.

“I saw you at the restaurant. In the bathroom.” Jensen really hoped Jared wasn't listening in. He looked down at the wood parquet, not wanting to meet Misha's eyes. “And I saw you before that. At Matt's. With the … thing.”

“So?”

Jensen's gaze snapped to Misha's face. “So? Did you really just say _so_?”

Misha sagged onto the couch, looking more belligerent than subdued. “I told you. You _agreed_. You knew what you were getting into … well, maybe you didn't. But you knew that part. You don't get to – you shouldn't get to be mad.”

Jensen had no idea what was going on with Misha. He could be flip, sure, and sarcastic, and silly. But he wasn't stupid, and he wasn't childish. Right now, he was being both, and Jensen's anger was starting to edge out over his anxiety.

“I have a lot of sex, Jensen. Most of it isn't with you. That can't and won't change. Though I suppose that can't matter much to you, anymore.” Misha fiddled with a loose thread on his shirt.

Jensen couldn't say anything. His nasal cavity burned. He sat down.

“I understand that seeing me hurt you. I wish it hadn't happened. But you said you didn't care if I had sex with other people. You said you were _sure._ I wish you'd never told me that. I didn't really believe you, of course. But I wanted to pretend for awhile. That was selfish of me.”

“ _That's_ what you call selfish? You left me in the middle of dinner to go blow some guy who needs a forklift to get out of bed in the morning.” Jensen spoke quickly, as if he were reciting one of his dumb facts. The words felt like they'd been pulled from him, and he didn't feel much better having said them.

“Don't be _shallow_ ,” Misha snapped. “We hadn't ordered yet, and I needed – I can't let myself get too hungry.”

Jensen slumped. What was he supposed to say? Misha wasn't making any sense. If this was what breaking up felt like – if this was how it went when you talked in-person – than Jensen was going to cast his vote on the side of abruptly withdrawing without a word. That was his mistake; he should have refused all contact after the thing at Matt's.

On the television, a baby cheetah was dehydrating to death. The camera panned out to show a tiny, dying dot, surrounded by a long expanse of cracked clay.

“Can you turn that off?”

Misha started fishing for the remote.

“Are you a sex addict or something?” Jensen wanted to sink into the cushions and die, hopefully faster than the damn cheetah. He wanted to go back home and never deal with this again.

“Or something.”

Jensen's stomach twisted. He'd had _enough_. What was the point of this? Misha was doing that thing where he talked, but nothing he said meant anything. Didn't Jensen deserve a real answer? Then again, he'd probably gotten it: Misha wanted to have a lot of sex, and he wanted to have most of it without Jensen, and he'd been _hungry_ , whatever the fuck that meant. Mostly, Jensen was getting that the good stuff – all of it – had been the delusion of his own, lonely mind.

He remembered the cliff.

“You're such an _ass_ ,” Jensen said.

Misha bared his teeth. “You're not the first one to say so.”

“I get to be mad at you. You ditched me to go get something that didn't even look fun. You call, and you don't let me talk, and then I come here, and you try and steamroll me with this bullshit. I don't even know why you thought we had to do this face-to-face, since you're not even saying anything _real_.”

“I have a hard time being real with people I've already lost, especially when I didn't want to lose them,” Misha said, apparently sincere. Except he couldn't maintain the serious tone. “But it seems like that's when I get to have this conversation. It's one of my favorites. It always goes so well.”

“Bye, Misha.” Jensen stood.

Misha followed. “You're not going to ask 'what conversation?'”

“I don't think I'm interested.”

Misha stepped closer. “I'm an incubus. At least, that's the closest term that seems to describe me.”

“Fuck you.” Jensen turned to leave.

But Misha was already there, somehow. “I feed on sexual energy. Or, sex is the conduit that allows me to feed off a person's life source. I'm not entirely sure of the mechanics. My introductory brochure went missing in the mail.”

“This isn't funny.”

“It's not,” Misha agreed. “I can feed until I kill. That's why I need other people. If I siphon off a small amount of energy from a lot of partners, I'm able to avoid hurting anyone.”

Jensen didn't know what Misha was playing at; he didn't know if he'd gone nuts or was finally airing some deep psychosis. But he didn't feel safe. He was in the house his best friend shared with his wife, talking to one of the few people who could draw him from his shell, and a cold sweat was breaking out between his shoulder blades, and his pulse was pounding, and he just wanted to escape to his car and lock the doors.

Misha looked unhappy, heading toward devastated. “You're afraid.”

He'd just talked about killing people with sex, almost like it was something he'd actually done. _He thought he was an incubus._

Jensen shook his head. “Let me leave.”

“I'm not insane, Jensen. You can ask Gen if you want. She knows.” Misha clamped one hand over his mouth, stifling a giggle. Then, his hand dropped away. “We grew up together, for the most part. She was there when it started happening. I didn't have to explain very much. She sensed that I was a monster, long before I had a name for myself.”

“You need help.”

“Most likely.” Suddenly, Misha was plastered against Jensen's front, although his hands stayed by his sides.

Jensen's head swam. He didn't like the feeling. He wanted to shout for help. He couldn't speak.

“Don't you remember what happened before I left the table?” Misha mouthed Jensen's jaw. “I hadn't been able to feed, for reasons I won't go into. I didn't realize how hungry I'd become until I kissed you. You went so pale, and I was afraid that if I touched you again, I'd hurt you.”

“You –”

Misha kissed him. He kept his mouth closed. Time stayed exactly as it should've, at least for awhile. Except, there was something sharp, something needling, and it was pricking along the length of Jensen's every vein. It was good, but it also _hurt_ , and he whimpered when he realized that he was losing something, that something was leaving him, that it was going into Misha.

He heard a shriek, and then Misha was gone, and Jensen was alone and afraid.

Gen was staring at them, horrified. Her purse had fallen off her arm. A tube of lipstick rolled across the floor until it hit Jensen's foot. “Misha! What the hell? You can't just _feed_!”

Misha looked ... reinvigorated. There was something brimming in him. Energy. He'd taken that. From Jensen.

“He didn't believe me. I demonstrated. He'll be okay.”

“Because I interrupted! You told him? I thought we weren't telling people.” Somehow Gen was now supporting Jensen. “He's not going to be okay to drive home, now. If he's staying here, you can't. How could you do this now? We can't take him to a hospital! Jesus. If I knew you were going to be this stupid, I would've kicked you out of town months ago!”

“He doesn't need a hospital,” Misha said, way too casually. “Occasionally, I manage to control myself.”

“What the Hell's going on?” That was Jared.

Jensen gasped. His lungs weren't big enough. They wouldn't expand. “I need air.”

“You need to sit down and drink something,” Gen said.

“Make it sugary.” Misha said, almost seriously. “Carbohydrates work well. Think of it like you just ran a few sprints. Replenish your energy, and your body, soul, whatever will begin to rebuild.

Jensen's veins buzzed. Did Misha feed from him every time? Was he _food_?

“I don't want to see you anymore,” he told Misha, as something clawed and twisted at his lower stomach.

“I get that a lot. Don't worry. No one has to.”

Gen cuffed Misha's shoulder. “Jesus, Misha. He's in shock or something. You can't talk to him right now. Get _out_.”

Misha and Gen exchanged a look that seemed to say a lot, though Jensen didn't quite get it.

“You can stay in the house until you move,” Gen said, finally. “But that's going to have to be soon. Like, tomorrow.”

“Aye-aye.” Misha saluted her.

Gen's expression didn't soften, but her voice wavered. “Misha –”

Jensen started vomiting. He couldn't stop.

#

Jensen woke up in Gen and Jared's guest bedroom. The room was dark, except for the moonlight flooding through an open window. It wasn't yet dawn. He remembered that he'd spent a good twenty minutes unable to stop upchucking everything he'd ever eaten. He remembered Jared half-carrying him into the bathroom and calming him down. He remembered being handed some old sweats and a toothbrush.

He also remembered Misha.

Jensen blinked blearily at the ceiling fan and sat up, feeling drained.

He wasn't alone.

Jensen scooched up against the headboard, all but clutching the sheets to his bosom.

Misha's stayed where he was–in an uncomfortable-looking wicker chair, which had been pushed to the end of Jensen's bed. He was hunched forward, his elbows on his thighs, his hands beneath his chin. He looked tired. Maybe he needed to feed.

_Feed._

“Yes, you remember things correctly.” Misha paused. “Unless you remember me revealing myself to be an elephant. In that case, you really have gone nuts.”

Jensen shook his head. “You're an incubus. You eat people.”

“I fuck people. Lots of people do.”

“Not _for food_.”

“That part is probably true.” Misha sat up, languid, like a cat. His eyes glittered alert and cold.

“I'm dinner. Or sex with me is dinner?” Jensen didn't know why he still wasn't making a run for it. Misha... Misha was a monster. Misha could kill him. Sure, he'd confessed the former and had avoided doing the latter so far, but Jensen still felt like his world was a snowglobe that had just gotten its first good shake.

“Sex with you is sex. It's just also something I need to live.” Misha rolled his shoulders, settling back in the chair. “Think of it like ... a romantic dinner. You're there for the company, but you're still eating the food, and it's still nourishing you.”

“Peacocks sometimes communicate with sounds too low for humans to hear.”

Misha looked unimpressed.

Jensen flushed. “I mean, I know you didn't start hooking up with me for the company. You said I _tasted good_.”

“You do. You taste very good, Jensen.” Misha managed to say it more sincere than dirty.

“I don't want to hear that.” Jensen swung his legs over the side of the bed. He didn't want to believe any of it, either, but Misha had done something last night, taken something from him, and Jensen wanted to explain it away but he _couldn't_.

“Then I don't know what you want me to say. We're talking about my biology. It's not something I can get out of or escape. I fuck a lot of people. Most of it doesn't mean much. Think of it like getting pretzels from a vending machine –”

“Stop making analogies.” Jensen rubbed at his temples. “Fuck my head hurts.”

“There are Chips Ahoy on the nightstand. You really should eat something.”

Jensen saw the package of cookies. They'd been opened and then stuffed in a Ziploc, because Jared and Gen were now the the type of people who worried about cookies going stale. He fished out a cookie and bit down. He quickly remembered that he hated Chips Ahoy. “Why'd you tell me? Do you tell a lot of people?”

“Would you?”

Jensen crunched his cookie. “Just answer the question.”

“I didn't have to tell Gen. She was there. I've tried with a few others, back when I was young and foolish. I'm not ... It's going pretty well this time. I'm feeling optimistic. How about you?” Misha's fingers tapped a rhythm against his leg.

It took Jensen a lot of effort to swallow his mouthful. “This is going _well_?”

“You haven't once attempted to knife me.”

“Do you make people have sex with you?”

Misha's face went stone cold. “I don't know, Jensen. Do I?”

Jensen didn't know. How was he supposed to know? “I'm not sure if I remember everything the right way. The cliff ... Misha, I hate heights. I'd never have gone that close to the edge on my own. Did you do something to me?”

“I've done a lot of things to you. You liked most of them.”

Jensen gave him a sharp look.

Misha rolled his eyes. “I have some effect on humans. Most people like me, at least at first. Almost everyone wants to have sex with me. If I'm influencing them, it's not conscious, and it's not something I can control. Whatever I'm doing, it works out pretty well, I think, considering I'd be in a lot of trouble if no one wanted me in their bed.”

“You are,” Jensen said. “You're influencing them, and you know it.”

“There are some things I can't afford to worry about.”

“Fuck you.” Jensen realized that was probably the wrong thing to say to a _sex monster_. He shrunk back, half expecting Misha to pounce. The idea was more scary than hot, so maybe Misha wasn't close enough to magic roofie Jensen. Maybe the magic roofies only lasted until you knew what he was doing, and then self-preservation kicked in.

Misha threw up his hands. “Fine. Yes. I think I might be. But I force no one. I'm incredibly considerate. You must have noticed.”

“You've been _eating_ me.”

“I haven't taken much from you at all. I'd say I was giving you a lot more.” There was a mocking lilt in Misha's voice. It made Jensen's throat close. Blood rushed to his face, and he didn't know who he hated more: himself or Misha.

“Have you killed anyone?”

Misha laughed. It was a soft laugh, but harsh. “I think this conversation just started going less well.”

That was a 'yes' then.

Misha was a murderer. He'd done whatever he'd done to Jensen, except worse. He'd drained innocent people dry. Jensen should be running. Why wasn't he running? This was more than Jensen was equipped to handle. Why hadn't Misha just let him go? Was he in danger here?

“What do you want with me?”

Misha stood. His grin didn't diminish when Jensen flinched back. “Jensen, Jensen. Do I have to remind you how we started? I sucked your dick. That was it. You're the one who wanted more from me. I'm the one who told you it wouldn't end well. Now you know what I am, and suddenly you're a victim?”

“Fine. I was the Bella to your Edward, but you were messing with my head to make that happen. Why didn't you just let me dump you? Why get me to come here? Why tell me this?”

Misha's smile faded. “I don't know.”

“Sometimes penguins have sex with their dead.”

“That's probably why.”

Jensen eyed him, confused.

Misha approached the bed, slow but not exactly hesitant. He was a predator. He didn't know a thing about caution. He stopped in front of Jensen and reached out with one hand, warm fingers following the edge of Jensen's jaw. “I'm used to making sure that no one notices. I don't know how to gauge myself when I get more forceful. I honestly didn't mean to make you sick.”

It wasn't exactly an apology.

“I got dizzy the first time. When you said you had car trouble.” It hit Jensen that Misha could have killed him that day. That he could have killed anyone. He didn't know why he wasn't running, except nothing felt real.

“I was pushing it,” Misha said. “It's exactly the sort of thing I should never, ever do. Other things might include dating nice gay boys and telling them what I am. You can blab if you want. No one will believe you.”

Jensen pushed Misha's hand away, because that sounded like 'no one will believe _you_.' “I wasn't lying earlier. I don't want to see you again. I wouldn't want it if you were just some human guy who was having orgies behind my back. The fact that you're a supernatural creature with a _biological imperative_ to have orgies behind my back isn't really a plus.”

“I can't say I thought it would be.”

Jensen wished Misha could stop being fake for a full two seconds.

Misha stepped back. “I'm leaving, Jensen. I was never supposed to stay here as long as I did. I ... wear out welcomes. I'll have to wait for all of Gen's friends to move out of town before I can visit again.”

His eyes scanned Jensen's face. What was Misha looking for? Whatever it was, Jensen couldn't give it.

“Don't be too mad at Gen,” Misha said, after a long pause. “And eat some more cookies. You're still too pale.”

Time stayed as it was. Misha left step by step. Each concussion echoed.

Jensen curled into the nearest pillow. “Fuck cookies.”


	3. Chapter 3

“Did you know?” Jensen asked Jared.

Jared jumped, splashing the coffee he'd been in the middle of pouring. “Jensen. Jesus. Don't sneak up on me.”

“Did you?”

“ _No_. I didn't even know something like him could exist.”

“But you believe it? This incubus thing?”

“Gen's the most down-to-earth person I've met.” Except the blush on Jared's face said there was more to the story.

“Did he demonstrate on you, too?”

Jared shook his head, grabbed a sponge and started wiping off the bottom of his mug and the countertop. God forbid someone leave a coffee ring on the pristine faux-marble.

Jensen crossed his arms over his chest. “What's with him and Gen?” It was slightly more polite than 'Whose side are you on?'

Jared threw the sponge in the sink. “Gen's family fostered kids. He was one of those kids. You didn't know that?”

“No one told me. They both made it sound like they were casual acquaintances from way back.” Jensen felt like an idiot. He remembered Gen telling him that Misha would eat him alive. How was he supposed to know she was being literal? “He wasn't at the wedding.”

“They're not close. Or they're not friendly. He was in India or something. Jesus, Jensen. You've been dating him for how long, and he's never been to your apartment? You didn't know about him and Gen?”

“I also didn't know he's a _monster_.”

“Okay. You have me there. You're also really lucky he left last night, because apparently the incubus thing also explains the bat hearing, and it's probably a bad idea to call monsters names to their face.” Jared ducked his head. His hair flopped over his eyes. He looked exhausted. Jensen was 90 percent sure Misha _had_ drained a tiny piece of him, except then he remembered how upset Gen got when he did it to Jensen.

“Gen and I got into it last night,” Jared said. “She didn't tell me either, and I know it's not really her secret to share, but it's _you_.”

Jensen grabbed a mug from the drying rack. “He got me to stand on the edge of a cliff, once. To see the view.”

“Aw, that's great. Just, you know, sooner or later, he'd have you jumping off it.” Gen stumbled in, wearing pajama pants and a Jared-sized sweatshirt, the neck falling off one of her shoulders. Her hair was up in a messy ponytail. Dark circles rimmed her eyes.

Jensen swallowed down something about the number of alien species in New Zealand. “Isn't he like your brother?”

Gen lifted her chin. “That's a real long story, and it's kinda personal. Let's just say he's … not really built to give a shit. It's not his fault. But it is what it is, and it never stops getting worse.”  
  
She must have seen something in Jensen's face, because her eyes went soft. “Fuck. I'm sorry. You have to know _I tried_. With both of you, even. I think he did like you, as much as he likes anybody. I don't know if that helps. He's not ... he's not someone I can just ditch. I couldn't tell you. You know that, right? I mean, who would believe me? And ... it's just, it's _not safe_.”

She was talking about what was safe for _Misha_.

Suddenly, Jensen couldn't stay there another minute. He set down his mug. “I gotta go.”

“Are you sure? You were pretty sick last night. You've got to be, um, processing. God knows I am, and I wasn't _sleeping_ with him. Feeding him. Incubi. Jesus. How is this real?” Jared shot a pleading look at his wife, because he didn't know how to not rely on her, even when he was pissed. “It gets worse over time. Isn't that what you said? The more it's with the same person, the more dangerous it gets?”

“It does, yeah. I mean, he can kill you the first time, too, but if he takes a little a lot, it can get just as bad.” Gen looked like she wasn't quite sure whether to go to him or not. She leaned against the counter, looking tired and small. “You two don't have to try and understand it all in a couple hours. It took Misha and me awhile, and it was _him_. When it started – God, he was such a mess.” Her mouth trembled. “Sometimes he needs me, okay? The one thing I ask is for him not to hurt anyone when he's here.”

_I haven't taken much from you at all. I'd say I was giving you a lot more._

Gen stammered. “I just – I know I should have done more.”

Jared seemed to remember that he was mad. He pursed his lips and didn't look at Gen.

Jensen wanted no part in their dumb domestic drama. “You were protecting him. He could have killed me. He's not even human.”

Gen made a helpless gesture. She clearly didn't know what to say, maybe for the first time in her whole life.

“I don't want to see any of you for awhile. Just leave me alone.”

“What did I do?” Jared sounded hurt. He looked it, too.

Jensen couldn't explain himself, and he didn't want to begin trying. He marched out.

#

He expected his apartment to feel different, somehow. His whole world had just undergone a major trauma. Monsters were real. He'd been _dating_ one.

It was exactly as he'd left it.

He'd already called in sick to work, so he opened up his laptop and went straight to PNAS; apparently, fruit flies didn't have much in the way of sexual selection re: Bateman, after all. Except Jensen wasn't captivated by fruit flies or graphs about fruit flies, and two seconds later, he found himself typing “incubi” into his search box.

One site said they were incorporeal. Jensen figured that one had to be wrong. He tried another. It was red type on a black background, and it talked about performing a Satanic ritual to summon a monogamous demonic life partner, which was Not Misha. All of the sites said incubi were demons, not monsters. Some said that they could shape-shift between male and female, that they stole sperm, that they attacked people when they were sleeping, that they didn't kill anybody.

Jensen recalled Misha saying that 'incubus' was the best word to describe him. It didn't sound like he'd always known what he was. Maybe he still sorta didn't. It seemed like an awful thing to figure out on your own. He wondered if Misha killed by accident. Had he known what he was doing? Had he gotten carried away?

Misha didn't play it as safe as he should if he really didn't want to hurt people. Jensen knew that much.

His diaphragm felt like a cage around his lungs. Jensen cupped his hands over his mouth and felt his breath push hard and fast against his palms. His skin felt tight. His apartment felt too small. He'd didn't know how he'd ever considered inviting Misha, not only to see the place, but to live inside it, to live alongside Jensen. He couldn't have handled it. Misha would have rearranged things. He would have been in and out constantly, disrupting everything, coming back from fucking who-knows-who with bright cheeks and a sharp smile. Misha would have killed Jensen one way or another.

He couldn't sleep that night.

He ended up pacing his apartment at 3 a.m., feeling hot and trapped and restless. Was it Misha? Had he done something to him? Did Jensen need to detox?

He went back on his computer. One website said he could call in a priest to exorcise an incubus, but Misha didn't even know where Jensen lived, so that wasn't likely to help. If there was anything Jensen truly needed help _with_.

At 5 a.m., he was just strung-out and stupid enough to text Misha 'can you turn into a girl?' before collapsing into bed and feeling his heart race.

In the morning, he found a reply from Misha. 'No. But it turns out I *can* magically transform into a male with sprained groin muscles. I hope you're happy.'

Jensen thumbed, 'r u immortal?'

Misha replied almost instantly. 'It's too early to tell.'

Jensen had already called in sick again – he told Mark he thought he had the flu and might need the whole week, which was pretty fucking stupid considering he could work from home if he really had to – so he turned off his phone for the remainder of the day. He thought about going to get groceries, but the idea of getting up to brush his teeth, feed himself, even change out of the same clothes he'd borrowed from Jared two days ago, overwhelmed him. He was exhausted. His thoughts flew and bounced and whirred.

He slept off and on until eight that night. Then he tried to read something about sexual dimorphism in _I. horvathi_ __until a headache blazed behind his eyeballs, and he realized he hadn't eaten anything but some crackers since that single Chips Ahoy. He was out of everything but coffee grounds, orange juice and condiments.  
  
He turned on his phone. Misha hadn't quit after his reply to the immortal question. Jensen quickly flipped through his texts:

'In all seriousness, I seem to be aging on schedule. I think that means I'm not. I hope it does.'

'I don't mind answering the questions I have answers to.'

'I know I shouldn't have dumped this on you. I'm not always a good person.'

Jensen wasn't entirely sure Misha was a person at all. But that didn't seem fair, did it? It wasn't like they'd only known each other a few weeks. He had spent a lot of time with Misha, comparatively speaking. They'd done a lot more than have sex. Misha found it so easy to smooth out Jensen's tics, make him feel like he could be safe with another person –

But Misha wasn't safe. He wasn't even close.

There were more messages:

'Are you there?'

'I hate texting into an abyss.'

Jensen typed, 'have u tried a polyamorist compound?'

He didn't get a reply until he was removing a half-gallon of skim milk from the fridge at the closest corner store. Even that seemed draining. Jensen was pretty sure he'd go home and sleep some more. His phone buzzed and he checked his messages. 'Polyamory isn't a lack of commitment. Plus, there are still townspeople and pitchforks to contend with.' The phone buzzed. 'Did you mean polygamist? 100 wives might work. Too bad they'd think I'm a demon.'

Did that mean Misha was or wasn't?

'do u fight every minute not to kill me?' Jensen typed.  
  
Misha's replies came quickly:

'Do you fight every minute not kill a sandwich?'

'It's harder to control when I'm hungry.'

'I don't want anybody dead most of the time.'

Jensen squinted at his phone's screen. He didn't know whether Misha was being scary, glib or both. He didn't know why he was even talking to him, except the weight on his chest was slowly lifting. Was that magic? Was it Misha? Was Jensen just that pathetic?

Jensen paid for his groceries. He check his cell phone on the way home. Misha had sent him another message: 'What are we doing?'

He wrote back, 'how often do u eat?'

#

Jensen munched chips in bed and tried to convince himself to go to work the next morning. He just didn't know how he was supposed to carry on like monsters didn't exist, that the world was bigger and scarier than he'd bothered to imagine. What if it didn't stop at incubi? What if there were vampires? Mummies? Ghouls? Why bother knowing that young fruit fly larva cannibalized older, fatter larva? Why know that the chemical composition of frightened grasshoppers contained more carbon than nitrogen – that their bodies could reduce microbial activity in soil?

He didn't know if Misha was science or magic. Jensen felt like he didn't know anything.

The walls of his apartment seemed closer than they'd ever been before. He thought about quitting his job, but he didn't know what else he'd do. Hole up in a bunker? Rub his body in garlic oil?

At some point, Misha had answered Jensen's last message:

'It depends.'

'The person, the act, how much I had the day before.'

'Do you want to talk?'

Jensen answered, 'does phone sex count?'

Two minutes later, his phone rang. It was a strange number, but Jensen knew it had to be Misha. He probably thought calling after Jensen posed that question was hilarious, which probably meant that the answer was a no. Probably.

Jensen picked up. “Misha?”

“Phone sex doesn't count,” Misha said in greeting. “Unless energy levels are extremely high – such as in the situation I believe you witnessed at Matt's – I need to be in physical contact to feed. Ambient energy is never quite as filling, either.”

“Oh.” Awkward pause. “You changed your number.”

“I do that frequently. I only kept the other phone to talk to you. Jensen?”

“I'm here. I just don't know what I'm doing.”

He heard Misha breathe in. “I meant what I said. I'll answer what I can. Most of it, anyway. I know that I was … unfair. This isn't your burden, though I confess that I'm a little at a loss. I don't know if you simply want to satisfy your curiosity, or –”

“Why me?” Jensen asked quickly.

Misha hesitated. “I might as well ask you the same thing.”

Jensen had no idea how to answer that question, other than 'time moves slower when you're not around.' “You said I tasted good.”

“Are we going to keep coming back to that?” Frustration crept into Misha's voice. “I gave you that blowjob because I needed it, and I knew you were willing. Plus, it was bound to piss Gen off. You're the one who had to go ahead and _like_ me.”

“Everyone likes you.”

Misha snorted. “That's true at first. After awhile, most people begin to sense I'm something they don't want around. I can't stay in one place very long.”

“Gen said you couldn't take me to a hospital.”

“Gen worries I'll make myself too obvious and get caught.” Something in Misha's voice said that was as much as he was going to say. Then, he softened. “It's at least partially to protect you.”

“What's the other part?”

“To protect me. I am sorry my demonstration hurt you, but you never needed hospitalization. If you had, Gen would have changed her tune. She wouldn't risk anyone's life. That's part of the reason I visit her every half-decade or so.”

Jensen already knew Genevieve was a paragon of everything wonderful, thanks.

“Do people taste differently? Can you feed during any... thing?”

Misha went along with the topic change. “Yes, and no. It has to be sexual contact, or at least contact that's revving the human's motor. If you really, _really_ enjoy foot massages, it's possible for me to feed from that, but most of it's about what you would expect. Kissing, petting, oral, penetrative sex. The amount and quality of the energy I siphon depends on the amount of contact and degree of arousal, plus every person's different. Kissing is like a sipping a caloric beverage. Acts involving orgasms are more like a light meal, at least the way I do it.” _  
_

“Uh.”

“Conversations with me often take on a surreal note.”

Jensen barked out a laugh. “I might have said that was true _before_.”

They kinda just sat there for a moment.

“Are you okay?” Misha asked, eventually.

“No.” Jensen's voice didn't even shake.

Misha sighed. “Why are you still talking to me? Texting me? Doing anything but running away screaming?”

Jensen thought 'I'm not okay' probably should have covered it. He didn't want to say, 'I don't have anyone else.' “What's it like when you feed?”

Later that night, he typed 'Misha Collins + murder' into his search engine. Nothing popped up, but that didn't mean there wasn't anything there. Misha could have hidden the bodies or changed his name. Maybe he did something magic to stay out of police records.

Misha had more or less admitted to killing people. Gen said it got more dangerous the longer he was with someone. Misha had let himself go too long without food, not once, but twice. He'd accidentally taken too much from Jensen three times.

He could have killed Jensen. He'd been hurting him, taking something from him, every time they kissed, sucked, stroked, fucked. Misha should have told him. Jensen had a right to know. Why hadn't he noticed? Why hadn't some instinct surfaced, telling Jensen to shut down and push Misha away?

Jensen couldn't sleep. At least that meant he couldn't wake up screaming.

He sent Misha another text, 'do you even care if I live or die?'

Misha didn't answer.

 #

Jensen received a message from Mark saying that he needed to come in by the end of the week, or else he'd lose his job. He wasn't totally sure he cared. He ignored Jared's calls.

He and Misha continued talking, somehow. A lot of it was the incubus thing, because Jensen didn't know what the fuck to make of that. But some of it tapered into the kind of normal, boring conversation any two people could have – at least if those two people were Jensen and Misha. Jensen mentioned that pigeons can count; Misha said Cleveland wasn't _that_ bad.

“The Internet tells me you're a demon,” Jensen said. “So you'd probably think that.”

Misha laughed, because he apparently wasn't too bothered by accusations of demonism. “I think I'm more of a changeling, really.”

“How's that?” Jensen didn't actually know that much about the supernatural. He liked lizard genetics and rock formations. He liked dense articles about deep-sea shrimp.

“I was dropped of at a hospital when I was two, and then I bounced around the system until I landed with the Corteses. Lucky them. I probably replaced some perfectly nice human child.”

A horrible thought crossed Jensen's mind. “You weren't always – I mean, your diet –”

“I wasn't a young Lolito, no.” Misha definitely wasn't laughing now. He sounded cool and aloof, like he wanted to watch Jensen shrivel.

Normally, Jensen would have obliged him. This time, he snapped back. “I wasn't accusing you of anything. How was I supposed to know? This is kinda new to me. You're not even _human_.” He paused. “You're not human.”

“No? At least, I don't see how I could be.”

“So why do you care if we die? I mean, what are we to you, other than a snack?”

“It's a good question. I often ask it myself, and, no, I don't have an answer for you.” Misha still sounded frosty, but now there was some bitterness, too. Maybe that wasn't the right word. “What do I sound like to you? A parasite?”

“Great spotted cuckoos make magpies raise their young. Some scientists think the magpies can't tell the difference between their own young and the offspring of the brood parasite species. Others think they can, but the magpies know the cuckoos will destroy their nests if they reject the alien chick, so they just keep feeding it and hope the cuckoos leave them alone next year.”

Silence.

Misha's voice went a little high, a little strained. “God, Jensen. I think I might miss you.”

Jensen's pulse throbbed in his throat. Because he didn't – this wasn't _like that_. He breathed easier after talking to Misha (which was weird, since the Internet said incubi legends were likely based on night terrors), but that didn't mean he wanted to lay eyes on him ever again, much less take on the care and feeding of an _incubus_. Misha could kill him. Even if Misha didn't, he'd be having a lot of sex with people who weren't Jensen. Did incubi carry disease? Was Jensen supposed to come home, find Misha having a foursome in the dining room and shrug it off?

“You weren't at Gen and Jared's wedding.”

“I was fucking a swami.” Misha didn't miss a beat.

The conversation moved to other topics. Jensen realized that he had no idea what he was doing. If there was anyone at all he should cut out of his life forever, it was Misha. It wouldn't be that hard. Misha was very possibly in Cleveland. Misha had no idea where Jensen lived. He could disappear on Jensen, too.

Why did the thought make Jensen's chest constrict?

#

Someone was knocking on his door. Jensen turned over, burying his face into his pillow. If he wanted to see people, he'd leave his apartment.

“I know you're in there,” said the voice at his door, which sounded an awful lot like Genevieve.

He padded to the door and found Gen on the other side, clutching a stack of tupperware, which she thrust at him. “You have Jared so worried he's taken up _baking_. Mostly from mixes, though, so don't worry.”

Jensen blinked down at the containers that had somehow transferred into his hands. “Um.”

“I made the quinoa-carrot thingies, so those are fine.” She peered curiously around the apartment, her expression noncommittal. “You don't like having anybody here, right? Sorry, but I knew you'd never pick up when I called, not if you're shutting out _Jared_. We can take this to a coffee shop or something, if that's better for you? Hell, we can talk in the hall, as long as we're talking.”

“There are she-male red-sided garter snakes,” Jensen said.

Gen frowned.

Jensen shuffled his feet, causing the topmost tupperware to slide precariously. He caught it against his chest. “They, uh, they're male, but they have like three times the androgen of the other male snakes, and they produce female pheromones. The other males go after them, which might help she-males find a more advantageous position in the mating ball.”  
  
Gen mouthed the words 'mating ball' and then shook her head. “Am I the snake or is that you?”

“We're not snakes. We're people.”

_We're people._

Heat erupted around Jensen's collar.

Gen looked tense enough to be debating a hasty escape. “So, coffee? You should probably leave the baked goods here. Most places don't let you bring in your own food.”

Of course Gen would bring him baked goods and then insist they go someplace where he couldn't eat them, not that Jensen was disappointed, exactly. They wound up at an Ethiopian place with yellow counters and vegan options. Gen ordered a medium coffee with a dash of soy milk, even though Jensen knew damn well she ate dairy. He got a large coffee which he intended to drink black.

“You and Misha grew up together,” Jensen said, when she seemed intent on not saying anything first.

"You already know that part,” Gen tapped her fingers on the table.

“Did he kill anyone?”

Gen looked at him, eyes wide. “Jesus Christ.”

“He acts a whole lot like he did.”

“I like the weird animals stories better.” Gen sighed and fiddled with the plastic lid of her cup. “I actually came here to talk about _Jay_. You know, the guy who was your best friend before I fucked things up?”

Jensen was pretty sure Jared was supposed to be Gen's best friend, now. He knew he couldn't blame Misha on Gen or Jared, except that he never would have met him without them. “Misha's still talking to me. I don't know what to think.”

Gen swallowed. “Look, Misha's not … I warned you away because he is dangerous, but it's not just the physical side. It's –” She paused. “I was four when my parents started fostering him. He could be a jerk, but it was, you know, normal kid stuff. He was more of a big brother to me than anything else. Then he turned fifteen, and it was like this switch flipped. Suddenly, he was the most popular kid at school. No one could get enough of him. He didn't know what to do with that. He'd always been kinda awkward, you know?

“I was a little too young to know exactly what was happening. He kept a lot of it to himself, until he couldn't anymore. And – it's hard to describe, but I just _knew_ something was wrong, not just with Misha, but about Misha. That's about the time it started to get really freaky. People got weird. _He_ got weird.” Gen looked far away. “I wanted to help him, but I was just a kid, and I'm not – I'm not immune to what he does. After awhile, I get just as angry and scared as everyone else. I wish I didn't, because I know it hurts him, whenever he's feeling human enough to hurt.”

Jensen drank some coffee.

“I think it does something to him, too. The moving, and the sex as snack food, and the way it always falls apart. It's very, very hard for him to give a shit, and every time I see him, he's gotten worse. When I say he's bad news, when I say he's dangerous, that's why. He doesn't mean to, but he looks at us like we're meals. You must have seen some of that.”

Jensen remembered Misha's smile; the way he'd looked tired the first time they'd met. He'd thought Misha was pretending about something. Jensen hadn't realized Misha's humanity was the facade.

“Eventually, people turn on him, you turn on him. You don't want to be around him when that happens, and neither does he.” Gen struggled for a moment. “Sorry, Jen. I don't want to betray his confidence, either. It's – there are things that go along with knowing Misha. He can't stay anywhere long. There's always the risk that he'll hurt someone. And – I have to take him in when he needs me, because if I don't, if he stops feeling any kind of connection to anyone, _he will_. Hurt people.”

Jensen wondered where her parents factored into this. He remembered them from the wedding. So had a couple more of Gen's foster siblings. No one had mentioned anything about a missing member.

“Did you turn on him?” Jensen asked. “You guys don't seem like siblings.”

Gen's expression set like stone. “He's my _brother_ , and I'd give anything to help him or fix him – whatever he needs. But I can't _like_ him most of the time. I can't help but be scared, or worried about what he's doing. He knows that. We try, and it's okay for a little while – but it's just – it's the way this thing works.”

She looked miserable. It must be hard, trying to push people away from Misha to protect them, without being able to tell them what he was. Maybe it was just as hard to see Misha become more and more monstrous, without being able to stop it.

Jensen remembered Misha's smile at the picnic. He wondered if Gen and Misha had ever fucked. “Why did he come here, then?”

“Like I said, it's okay for a while.”

“But –”

“That's really the sort of thing you should be asking him.” Gen ran a hand through her hair, pulling strands from her ponytail. “Great, I come here to patch things up, and I just keep giving you more reasons to hate me.”

Jensen blinked, startled. “I don't hate you.”

“Like Hell.” She gave him a flat look. “Jay keeps telling me you'll warm up eventually. You know, it's _important_ to him that his best friend and his wife get along. But you don't really warm up to people, do you? You either like them or you don't, and I get extra shit points because I took Jared away or some other childish bullshit, and now there's Misha, and you really _should_ hate me over that.”

“I like Misha,” Jensen said, and now hedidsound like a child. He tried again, “I've only told you one weird animal thing today.” Making fun of himself wasn't something he liked to do – not when so many people were quick to take care of that for him. He checked Gen's reaction. She looked like she might start crying at any minute, which really wasn't what he wanted.

“I'm an asshole?” he offered.

She snorted, and then smiled. The expression was bleak. “Isn't everybody?”

Jensen knew that look. He wore it often, before he'd taught himself not to – the hurt that lay beneath the smiling mask. He'd seen it in Misha. He hadn't thought that Gen might wear the same.

Jensen reached for her hand. “Jay isn't. Most of the time.”

“Yeah.” Gen's surprise at Jensen's touch faded. She gripped his hand, and then pulled away before he could get any more self-conscious.

“I'll apologize. It's not his fault. I just –” No, telling Gen he'd been in collapse post-Misha wasn't the way to go, not this soon. Jensen shrugged instead.

“You seem good, though,” Gen offered.

Jensen shook his head.

“It takes time. Your whole world just got upended.”

“It's not getting easier.” Jensen blew out a breath. “I was breaking up with him when he threw all of this on me. I caught him … feeding, I guess. I shouldn't be mad at him. He told me he'd be sleeping around. He can't help himself –”

“He can help some things,” Gen said. “He stayed longer than he should have.”

“He can't come back, can he?” The thought hurt far more than it should.

“It'll just be easier for him to get caught if he does, and it'll be harder for him to feed. It'll be awhile before Matt and Julie talk to me again, I think. I thought it would work out better with them –” She stopped. “His magic gets me, too. I can't think when he's around. I should have warned them a whole lot more than I did. Why didn't I?”

Jensen never minded the few times his thoughts stopped whirring. He thought he'd found peace, every once in awhile, with Misha.

“Misha's a little attached to you,” Gen said, suddenly. “He doesn't usually do that. But – I don't know how long he can keep it up, and you know – you know what you'd be risking. This isn't me telling you to go after him with a boombox playing your favorite love song. I just – it helps me, knowing that he does care about me, as much as he can. I wish that it made a difference, but sooner or later you realize it can't.”

Jensen said, “Misha and I are over, and we should stay that way.”

“You should. You really, really should.” Gen agreed, after a long pause. “I'm always here, if you need to talk. No matter what you end up doing.”

Jensen wasn't aware that he was going to _do_ anything.

Gen smiled, bright and wide, and it reminded Jensen just a little of Misha. “Can you let Jay know we're officially getting along? And also talk to him?”

“Yeah,” Jensen said, automatically. He forced himself to focus. “Yeah. Okay.”

 #

The quinoa things were awful.

Jensen spat a bitter chunk into the sink and dialed Jared's cell. His mouth decided to run off on him, and he started off with, “Your wife's not too bad. She's a shit baker, though. Aren't you supposed to find someone who doesn't share all your weaknesses?”

“I told her the package said to cook it first,” Jared muttered. “Hey! I make awesome food.”

“Uh-huh. Hey, I thought we could do something.”

Jared immediately perked up. Jensen couldn't remember the last time he'd called Jared with a plan. Maybe he never had. “Really? Like what?”

“No picnics,” Jensen said. “Or barbecues or potlucks.”

“You don't have to come every time you're invited. I just didn't want you to think that me and Gen moving out here meant that we were gonna stop hanging out.” Jared sounded a little defensive, which wasn't what Jensen wanted. 

“Could we save it for the hike?” Jensen asked.

“You want to go on a hike? Since when do you hike?”

Since Misha, apparently. Maybe he didn't just suck down energy. Maybe he's permanently stripped Jensen of some things, like the knowledge that walking uphill through bug-infested trees shouldn't count as a normal person activity. Not that Misha was in any way normal. Not that Jensen counted, either.

“I want to go on a hike,” Jensen confirmed. “I know which trail. Want to meet at the lake?”

 ###  
  



	4. Chapter 4

Jensen really didn't like hiking.  
  
He let Jared chatter away, while he focused on slapping mosquitoes from his legs and avoiding long grass, since long grass contained ticks. At least his feet weren't blistering. Yet.  
  
Jensen balked when they got to the sprawling boulders that led to the top of the cliff. “Water break?”

“Sure.” Jared sat down and said something about volunteering at the animal shelter and trying to convince Gen that they wanted a mastiff or this one rottweiler mix, except she kept eying the terriers –

Jensen focused on his breathing. Time moved at its usual pace. Of course he didn't. It had taken _magic_ to get Jensen up on the cliff.

Sweat crawled down Jensen's back.

His arm received a poke.

He swatted at Jared's hand. “Hey.”

“Misha took you up here, didn't he? That cliff you were talking about?” Jared gestured vaguely upward. “I'm never going to know how the Hell he dragged you all the way up there. You don't even like balconies.”

Jensen was fine with balconies, as long as they were two stories or lower, and their construction looked solid. “He compelled me like a vampire.”

Jared shot him an astounded look.

Jensen shrugged. “He did something. One minute, he was telling me I should see the view. Then I was standing right there with him. Hell if I knew what happened.”  
  
“Is that the only time he did something like that? I mean, he didn't magic you into, you know, feeding him.” Jared looked horrified.  
  
No. I don't know. Maybe he did. He thinks he has some kind of effect on people, but it's beyond his control. Maybe he secretes weird pheromones. Animals do that. Bull moose have it in their urine –”“  
  
“If that is anything like your sex life with Misha, I don't want to know. I really, really don't.” Jared leaned back, kicking his legs out in front of him. He wasn't like Jensen; he couldn't stay still. “I'm glad Misha didn't hurt you. Physically.”

Jensen remembered the way their eyes had met, at that dumb picnic. The way Misha could beam, sometimes, when he dropped the mask and there wasn't just bleakness behind it. 

If he'd been working on anything close to his normal schedule, he would have started getting anxious and closed-off after that first time in Misha's van, if not earlier. Maybe that was all Misha's sex magic. Except Jensen didn't want to think he needed to be _high on incubus_ to date someone.   
  
The idea that it had been something about Misha, The Person, wasn't much better. Jensen couldn't remove Misha from the monster: It wasn't like Misha would be the same if he weren't an incubus, or that an all-human Misha would want anything to do with Jensen. What they had wasn't love, but 'beggars can't be choosers.' 

“I liked him,” Jensen said. “Except I was never really sure if I liked him or who I was with him. At one point, I was pretty sure it was just that last one.”

“You seemed … not happy, exactly, but definitely more confident. But I'm not sure it's worth being with someone who's going to be hurting you like that 24-7. Even if he doesn't mean to, or doesn't want to, he still _is_. You could die. Jesus, Jensen. Nothing's worth that.” Jared kicked at a clod of dirt.

The silence pressed in, hot and humid.

“You know, you never say what you like about him," Jared said. "It can't be his magic roofie powers."  


 

Jensen shoved at Jared's arm. "I don't like being _roofied_."

"Then what? He's biologically required to cheat on you, and whenever he's not out having sex with other people, he's sucking down your life force or your soul or whatever the Hell it is he really eats. That's not _healthy_." Jared took a deep breath. "Is this my fault? Me marrying Gen, me moving out here – I know I kinda left you in the lurch, but it's different when I'm all the way out here. We have to plan things instead of me just walking over to make sure you're not just sitting in the same place all day."

"You always invite me, plus twenty other people." Jensen realized he sounded like a whining kid. He ran a hand over his face, only to realize he had dirt on it. Because he was on a fucking _hike_. "It's not your fault."

“You just _said_ it was.” Maybe Jensen wasn't the only overgrown kid, here. “Maybe I've had a lot going on, with moving, and the house, and making friends in a whole new neighborhood –”

Like Jared had ever struggled to make friends.

“I get it,” Jensen said. “Your life is changing right now.”

Jensen's wasn't. Jensen's never would. Maybe he'd avoid going into work long enough to get fired. So what? He'd find an identical job elsewhere, filling out identical spreadsheets. He'd continue to see Jared every once in awhile, and he'd spend his evenings alone, reading science journals, in his studio with a chair he couldn't sit in. He'd meet new people. He'd like a few of them, and then he'd shut himself off when that suddenly became terrifying.

Jensen would stick to his default settings until he died. Whether he wanted to or not.

He liked Misha's smile. He liked his stupid giggle and his occasional attempts at kindness. He liked that Misha could chip away at Jensen's shell. He didn't know how to separate Misha and The Misha Effect. He didn't know what was need and use, what was affection. But the idea of going without – forever – seemed unbearable.

But he couldn't make that decision. It wa _s stupid_.

Jared frowned, clearly troubled. “Jensen, I want to be there for you, man, but I don't know how to do that if what you want is going to kill you.”

Jensen sighed. Jared wouldn't ever understand, because he'd never been caged by his own impulses.

What if Jensen could throw it all away for Misha? To – what? Travel with him? Date him? Complain about his cold feet and kiss him good morning, even knowing that Misha was fucking everyone else in town? That their good morning kiss was also Misha's breakfast? It was dangerous. It was _inane_.

“I was going to ask him to move in with me,” Jensen said. “Before I caught him with other people and decided to break up with him, instead.”

“You'll find someone else. Gen knows this great girl, and I think you'd like her –”

“I don't think I want someone else.”

Jared's jaw snapped shut. He looked hurt. Then he looked away. “You've made up your mind? You're choosing Misha? He eats _people_!”

"No man's an island." Jensen picked at a blade of a grass, right before he remembered that insects lived in grass.

“You were right before,” Jared said. “My life's changing. I'm _married_. Gen and I put a down payment on a house in the suburbs, so our kids will get into a decent school system, and I can have a big yard and dogs. It's good. Of course it's good. It's just also … big. You know. This is the whole rest of my life.”

Green stained Jensen's fingers. The whole rest of his life was exactly what scared him.

He couldn't run off with Misha.

It would mean abandoning his job, his place, his one friend. It would mean change, a lot of change, when change was something Jensen couldn't handle. Jensen feared going and staying, he feared Misha and never seeing Misha again. The smartest thing was also the easiest: He should stay where he was.

Jared frowned. “I know you've been having a hard time. Have you ever given a thought to, you know –”

"Don't start that again." They'd only had one major fight, and it had been when Jared threw around the word 'therapist,' like talking to some stranger would be of any help to Jensen. “I know Misha and I don't make sense –”

“Sure you do. You're his _food_.”

“Maybe I need him.”

Jared shook his head. “I know he probably made you think that –”

“I'm not _brainwashed_.”

Jensen should lose Misha's number and move on.

He didn't want to.He didn't know what he wanted. How could it be Misha? Misha, with his brittleness and exhaustion and warmth? Jensen didn't understand Misha. He didn't understand himself when he was with him. But Jensen had been willing to let Misha in, and he was tired of trying to figure out why.

Misha wasn't an experiment Jensen could dissect, distill to the elements and repeat. For better or worse, he was one of a kind.

“Whatever I do with Misha is up to me,” Jensen said. “Your life is changing. Why can't mine?”

Jared scrambled to his feet. “Because your way is going to _kill_ you?”

 

 

Jensen stood up, brushing his palms on his jeans. “You don't know that. Misha managed to leave everyone in this town alive.”

“You heard Gen. It gets more dangerous the more he's with someone –”

“We'd figure it out.”

“You'd figure it out? How can you figure something like that out? You're basically dating Dexter!”

Jensen threw up his hands. “Who else would have me? At least I'd live a little before he killed me!"

Jared looked like he'd been slapped. “If you hate your life that much, do something different with it.”

“Fine.” Jensen lifted his chin.

“That's not what I meant! Jensen, you don't even _like_ Misha.”

Jensen looked away, and then laughed, thinking of all the times he'd told Misha how much he did. “You can't stop me from doing this, Jared. You just get to decide whether or not I'll be with Misha when he visits Gen a decade from now.”

Jensen didn't doubt Misha would take him back. He didn't know how someone – something – like Misha could  
feel like a safe harbor.

Jared's eyes widened. “A decade? You're talking about leaving for a _decade_?”

“I don't know. I don't know how it works with him. I don't know if I'll –” Jensen broke off, not wanting to say he didn't know if he'd ever make it back. “It would suck if my only friend decided he was never going to talk to me again.”

“You – you can't get rid of me that easily. I never let you before.” Jared swallowed. “There's really no way I can talk you out of dating a Munster?”

“The Munster's your brother-in-law,” Jensen reminded him. “And sure you can. Just get me on the edge of that cliff.”

#  
  
When Jensen got home, he texted Misha his address.  
  
'What is this?' Misha wrote back. 'Jensen?'  
  
#  
  
He showed up a week later, a smiling presence just inside Jensen's door. He didn't look that different. Maybe a little more tired, even though the tension in his stance, the barely there quiver in his hands, announced that he'd fed. Fucked. Jensen knew what was going now. He'd been turning it over in his head since Misha had left. That didn't make it easier now.

What the Hell was he doing?

“This is it, huh?” Misha peered over Jensen's shoulder, trying to get a look at his place.  
  
Jensen moved to the side. “Yeah.”  
  
“Can you sit in that thing?” Misha nodded toward the bowl chair.  
  
“No.”  
  
Misha nodded, like that made sense, and spun around, taking in what was left. It was pretty clear that he didn't belong there. He made everything so _small_. “Is there – what am I doing here, Jensen? You never let me here when we were dating – which was pretty smart of you, actually, and something I always respected you for –”  
  
“We're talking.”  
  
“Is that all?”  
  
Jensen eyed him. “Why? Did you skip breakfast or something?”  
  
“Do you want to hear exactly how well fed I am?” Bitterness entered Misha's voice. A second later, it was gone, replaced with a light, false tone. “I wasn't sure I was getting a home-cooked Jensen. I didn't want a repeat of the last time I let myself go too long.”  
  
Jensen didn't like thinking of himself as a meal, except he knew Misha wasn't being serious. At least, he hoped not. Then again, he was Misha-food, and that didn't seem like the sort of thing he should ignore, even if he was more than that, too. “Maybe I should. Know. Not right now. But – I guess we didn't do it right before. You know, not talking about it. I've been looking at websites, and they said you can't just ignore the open part of an open relationship –”  
  
“I'm not _poly._ I'm an incubus. There aren't guidelines about trust and jealousy for you to download. We don't hold seminars.” Misha paced a few steps. “I kept that from you. The truth always makes things uncomfortable.”

“I didn't want to know. I'm … I'm still pissed you risked me like that.”

“That's understandable.” Misha's mouth twitched. “I didn't want to know, either. I ignored it when it started. I told myself I was just another horny orphan from the suburbs, that it was _normal_. It would have been safer for everyone if I'd known, or allowed myself to know. I was dating a girl at the time. Alona. My _first_.”

Jensen's skin went tight, and his lungs ached for the air he'd just stopped breathing. He knew this Alona girl had died. Or that it would have been better for her if she had.

Misha looked up at the ceiling, face creased in an awful smile. “Want to know a secret? I missed Gen's wedding because I was looking for a cure. I do that occasionally. I get an urge, an itch, and I think, 'Why not quit the incubus gig? I ended up fucking the wiseman who was supposed to give me answers, help me balance my chi, whatever the fuck is wrong with me that means I need to suck the life force from other people. Except I didn't care when he failed. It didn't bother me at all. I couldn't feel a thing.” Misha met Jensen's gaze, straight-on. “I could kill again, again and again, and let it all roll right off me. I'd so _like_ to be a monster.”  
  
“Male anglerfish fuse to the bodies of the females. Their organs dissolve.” Jensen stepped closer.  
  
“Have I de-evolved from bird to fish?” Misha moved away. “I thought Gen could ground me a little. She usually does. Not this time. I was too far gone. Then, there was _you_. Asking me out on _dates_. Like I was something _natural_.”  
  
Jensen wanted to reach for Misha, but he couldn't quite make himself. “You're natural, Misha.”

Misha shook his head. “I could have killed you. I'm not as good at this as I should be. I'm not as _good_ as I should be.”  
  
Jensen drew in a breath, feeling something deep within loosen and rattle. “Dolphins murder their own babies. There's a species of molly that can only reproduce by having sex with a completely different species of molly. Nature's _fucked._ ”

Misha blinked at him.

“I invited you here, didn't I? Jay's the only one who gets to come here, and I've known him for years. You're new, but you've done something to me, and now I can't –” Jensen sat down on the bed and put his head in his hands. How could he explain that, without Misha, he was trapped?  
  
If this were a movie, Jensen would just grab Misha and kiss him. The music would swell, and the curtains would close, and the hard part would be over.  
  
But kissing – that would just be giving Misha a meal. A snack. An appetizer? Jensen wasn't sure what kind of message he needed to send. He didn't know why he thought Misha would be interested in the first place. “I'm quitting my job. I can freelance. Or figure something else out. I know you can't stay anywhere long-term.”  
  
Misha went very, very still. Jensen hadn't realized how jittery he was until the nervous energy left him, leaving nothing but a cold, blue, predatory gaze. “You remember what I am, don't you Jensen? You remember that I will feed from you? You didn't seem to like that idea before.”  
  
“I still don't,” Jensen said honestly. “Could anyone?”  
  
“Then what am I doing here?” Misha was trying to keep up his uncaring veneer, but he couldn't help but seem a little smaller. Gen had said that he'd become attached, which was pretty bizarre on its own, for something like him – something that had no reason to care at all for human beings, once the seduction was over.  
  
“I just gave you an address. Why did you come?”  
  
Misha's lips parted. But he seemed to think better of whatever it was he going to say. “Why did you want me to?”  
  
“You won't like my answer.” It wasn't like Jensen was prepared to declare his undying love.  
  
Misha huffed. “Neither of us likes anything the other has to say. It's almost like one of us is a monster and the other is socially inept.”  
  
“We're both inept,” Jensen said. “You just have creepy magic and that thing you do. The fake thing.”  
  
“I am 100 percent genuine fake thing.”  
  
“You're not. You're perfectly natural. Maybe you're not even a incubus. You could be a sex vampire. You could be a mutant human. I know I said you weren't before, I know you don't think you could be – but why the fuck not? There's not another animal out there who eats like you, so who says you have to be a whole other species –”  
  
“Me.” Misha stopped and swallowed, like he were catching himself. “I have to move constantly. I have to _feed_ constantly. Sometimes there's nothing to me that isn't hunger, and I find myself clawing to hold onto things I can barely imagine, much less remember. Things like not being homicidal. I've ... had some close calls.”  
  
“I freeze people out,” Jensen said. “Or I freeze myself in.”  
  
“This can't end anything but badly.”  
  
Silence.  
  
“There's something to end?” Jensen asked.  
  
Misha stumbled forward, as if he'd been drawn, and then he was there, in Jensen's space, caging him with arms planted on either side of his thighs.  
  
Jensen felt his lips on the edge of his ear, and he wondered where the line was exactly, when this stopped being two people and started being predator and prey. Then he realized it was always the latter. No matter what else they tried to be. There'd always be something ugly about them, even if Misha didn't kill him.

But there was something else, too, something cold and sweet, and Jensen caught a glimpse of a longer view, shimmering and iridescent. He turned his head and caught Misha's lips. Time started speeding, bleeding, moving forward, the world a rush, and him and Misha the still center of it all. It hurt.

They separated.

“What are you waiting for?” Jensen asked, when Misha just stared at him, stunned and warm and flushed. “Let's go.”

Misha twisted his fingers into Jensen's shirt. “I only just got here.”

#

Jensen woke up when Misha returned to bed, still damp from the shower. He turned over, his brain rapidly trying to make sense his seeing his studio, now with bright-eyed, smiling incubus. Things snapped into place soon enough. “I wanted you to wake me up.”  
  
“I didn't want to disturb you. At least I brought you breakfast?” Misha pressed a kiss to Jensen's shoulder. It wasn't sexual, so he probably wasn't getting any nourishment out of it.

Jensen saw coffee cups and paper bags sitting on top of his counter. He smelled yeast. “Did you get yourself something?”

Misha didn't tense, but Jensen could tell it took calculated effort. “Unfortunately, being with you means I have to feed more often, not less. I don't know what the long-term effects might be. I don't ever want to use you as a meal.”  
  
“I know you can't help that.” This would have been a good time to go back to sleep. Jensen closed his eyes. He felt Misha's fingers trail over the forehead, brushing back into his hair, and he grunted, only somewhat annoyed. He had forgotten that Misha was a morning person, though he'd only lately learned that the energy surge came from sex. He wondered how that worked. Did Misha just accost joggers on their morning run? Did he leave the minute Jensen fell asleep?  
  
“All sex is food sex,” Misha agreed. He pinched Jensen's ear. “But that's not what it's about with you.”

Jensen popped open his eyes, only to find blue ones filling his entire field of vision. “Jesus. Mish –”

“Don't ever fuck me because you think I'm hungry. You aren't a regular meal ticket, and turning you into one won't mean anything good for either of us. Sex between us should be about feeling good, or feeling close, or ...” Misha trailed off, like he couldn't imagine any more non-creepy reasons to have sex.

“I didn't volunteer to be your buffet.” Jensen pushed Misha's hand off his ear. “Want to tell me, um, what happened? I think we should be, ah, open. Disclosure-wise.”

He meant that Misha should be open, since Jensen's eating habits didn't involve sex acts with strangers, and they both knew it. The truth was, he didn't really want to know, and he felt embarrassed for asking. But Misha kinda sucked at keeping things hidden, and knowing without knowing hadn't worked too well for Jensen, either.

Misha moved away and and rattled off, “I met a couple. Fucked the woman while her husband watched and beat off. Then I sucked him. That will hold me for awhile. But it would be safer if I fed again during the day. For you and my inevitable next meal.”

It was hard to speak. Jensen supposed it was normal to be jealous, not to mention freaked out because, for Misha, threesomes were like breakfast burritos.

“I think if I were cured, I'd happily embrace celibacy. At least for awhile.” Misha almost sounded wistful. “Granted, I'm realizing that I might as well ask to be cured of blue eyes and toenails that grow.”

Jensen decided to focus on that first part. “You don't want sex?”

“No, I do. I can't help that either.” Misha stared at the ceiling. “I've been doing this a long time, Jensen, and I'm tired. But it is what it is. No one was hurt. They had a good time. I'm a little less hungry than I'd be otherwise. It'll be the same thing tonight, and tomorrow, and the tomorrow after that. Do you really want to hear about each and every person I use?”

Jensen didn't know what to say. He didn't doubt that the couple had fun, but he also knew that they hadn't been working on full information, that they probably didn't understand why they'd gone as far as they had. That wasn't something Misha could worry about. Jensen wondered if the same thing applied to him. “Is there anything that can be just for us?”

“Physically? No. I'm not Julia Roberts.”

“I'm glad you took so much time to think it over.” Jensen propped himself up, officially awake.

“Kissing doesn't fill me up, but it's better than nothing, and it's safer for the other party.”

That was either funny or terrifying, considering what Misha could do with a kiss.

“I'm not going to stop performing any sex act with other people, not if doing so could put me in a position where I need to take more the next time. Also, for the record, I've turned to sex workers in desperate circumstances. I try not to make a habit of it. I've also whored myself out, when I didn't know what else to do.” Misha's voice had taken on a flat edge. “It's probably a little more honest than my usual method. Every party's aware that it's a transaction. They just don't realize the extent of the trade.”

“Wow.”

Misha swung his legs off the bed, nearly bounding toward the kitchen island. “I brought coffee and potatoes. Did you know that you have a breakfast potatoes lady two blocks away? I got those and some rolls from a baker. I wasn't sure what you'd like.”

“Misha.”

“Are you rethinking full disclosure?” He dug into the bags he'd bought, rustling paper.

“This is going to be hard.”

Misha paused, plastic food containers in both hands. “For you more than me, I think.”

Jensen rolled his eyes. “I'm not breaking up with you already.” He got out of bed and approached Misha, his hands sliding around his waist. “You're not feeding from this, are you?”

Misha leaned back against him. “No. But I can't guarantee that you'll be the sole recipient of my cuddles, either. I try to keep up a pretense of actual seduction. People question it less, later.”

“You didn't with me.”

“When I met you, I was struggling to care about anything. Including pretense.” He set down the food. “Jensen, I will share a life with you, to the best of my ability, until you wise up and run. But physical intimacy means nothing to me, except that it's with you. It's an outward expression, not just an act, and that's all I can offer.”

“It's us.”

Misha nudged back with his hip. “Sometimes, caring for you means that I will refuse to touch you and go sleep with other people. Having you hate me was hard, but not unexpected. It's so much better than the alternative where you don't exist anymore.” He wasn't asking Jensen if he thought he could handle that, probably because he didn't want to know the answer. “I'm going to fall for you, you know.”

Jensen gripped Misha a little harder, and he sensed something coiling – a thread of tension that wouldn't ever leave them. “You'd say that about anyone who liked you for more than a minute.”

“But who else would?”

“Penguins mate for life.”

“What?” Misha craned his neck to look at him. “You don't have to have sex with me. Meaningful sex is new and novel, but so is meaningful everything. If you'd feel safer without it, we work around that.”

“How did you get there from penguins?” Jensen asked. “Females prostitute themselves. Males sometimes confuse dead females with willing mates. They're not really monogamous, and it depends on the species. But some penguins form long-term pair bonds.”

“Some penguins.” Misha found and squeezed Jensen's hand. “Your food's getting cold.”

Jensen nipped his neck, more playful than suggestive. “Then I guess I better eat.”

###

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So many thanks to snickfic and grashoppr_molly for their help. Also, my artist, tsuminoaru, deserves a huge shout-out. She was a dream to work with, and her art is gorgeous. Everyone go and tell her how much you love it! Finally, I offer both thanks and a ritual sacrifice to the mods of deancasbigbang, who organized a terrific challenge. I'm quite happy to have made the deadline this year!


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